Woodbridge students pull garbage from river

David Gard/For The Star-LedgerClassmates pull an inner tube out of the Woodbridge River today during the cleanup.dDavid Gard/For The Star-Ledger A pedestrian walks past the pile of garbage pulled from the river today in Woodbrige.
WOODBRIDGE -- The murky water reached halfway up the brown fishing waders Sweta Sukhadia was wearing, but she didn’t care.
With a facial expression that gave away her determination, the 16-year-old planted her right foot on the surface of the Woodbridge River, slowly moved her left foot toward a bank and reached for her goal. She got it, and managed to stay dry.

The prize for all her effort? A tiny, empty bottle of Smirnoff Vodka.

It was among the smallest pieces of garbage and debris found today as dozens of high schoolers yanked, dragged and fished the junk from a river few residents even know exists. There were car tires, a truck tire, a shopping cart, three bicycles, a sofa, a bag of coconuts and even a car engine. And the grave marker for a man who died in 1980 (he’s buried at nearby Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens).

David Gard/For The Star-LedgerA grave marker lies amid the stones in the Woodbridge River today.

For 17-year-old Christina Sawler, a senior as J.F.K. Memorial High School, that sort of dumping is hard to understand.

David Gard/For The Star-Ledger Patrick Brennan, 14, of JFK Memorial High School, holds up the jawbones he found in the river today.“It’s ridiculous — there’s a couch,” said Sawler, who takes an Advanced Placement class in Environmental Science. “...How do people throw stuff there without thinking what it will do to the environment?”

It’s a question that organizers and township officials are also asking, including Mayor John E. McCormac who says it makes little sense given the resources his township offers residents.

“It’s unfortunate that we even have to do this,” said McCormac, who earlier in the morning stopped to greet the group as they organized outside the Iselin Branch Library on Green Street.

The township has a recycling center that residents can bring junk to for free, or they can have local officials remove bulk waste for a fee. There’s also once-a-year, town-wide pickups.

But, for some reason, those tools aren’t used as much as they could be. It was evident today as the teenagers, who came from all three Woodbridge high schools, spent a vacation day wearing boots and walking through mud — all in an effort to clean up a half-mile stretch of the river.

This is the second year for the event, which is organized by the township’s Office of Emergency Management and its Community Advisory Panel, which includes representatives from the petrochemical industry. Those refinery owners paid for most of the resources used for the cleanup, according to organizer Frank Sutphen, who sits on the advisory panel and is a retired township employee.

“They want to see their community cleaned up,” he said.

Last year, volunteers netted some 1,950 pounds of garbage and debris from a quarter-mile stretch of the river in the Port Reading section of town. They didn’t have a scale this year, but Sutphen figured the junk would weigh even more.

“The kids are very enthusiastic,” said an elated Sutphen as he jockeyed organizational duties outside the library. “They’re hard working, they’re trying to do something for the area.”

David Gard/For The Star-LedgerFrom left, Brett Wiewiorski, Richard Kerbis and Charles Kreiselo hop into the river to help clean it up today in Woodbridge.The experience had an impact on at least a few of those young people. Woodbridge High senior Richard Kerbis, Brett Wiewiorski and Charles Kreisel, all 17, were the only ones “diving into the water,” as they put it. All say they’re interested in careers in science, and that it was remarkable to see first hand how dirty the river is.

“I went up to Canada,” said Wiewiorski. “Rivers don’t look like this up there. Rivers aren’t supposed to be murky three inches down.”